Sticks and Stones

Bullying is a sensitive subject. I doubt there is one person on the planet who can claim never to have been bullied or to have been a bully, or both. I got teased a lot in school, had ugly rumors spread about me, and you know what? It hurt. And you know what else? I learned how to deal with it.

Bullying has come to encompass any and every physical and verbal action that is unwanted. Schools now have Zero Tolerance policies, which are, in my experience so far, largely ineffective, but my kids are in elementary school so I may change my mind in a few years. We will see. My point is, nobody wants mean things said about them. How one handles those comments defines their character and we are not trying to teach our kids to accept difficulty but to blame others for how we feel. This is nothing new. Prohibition and the Treaty of Versailles are just two examples of Zero Tolerance Policies and look how well they turned out.

None of my Aspie's friends know he has a "disability" (I hate that word, by the way) because his disability is invisible. To everyone else he appears fairly normal, until something is too loud or there is too much going on, or he becomes bored, or gets off his schedule. When this happens in class, his peers don't understand that he is not acting out or trying to be funny...he is trying to cope. Classmates whom he calls "friends" call him arrogant because he has to blurt out answers before everyone else can think about them and tells people he is smart. (He is, but he did not understand that that is considered bragging. We had to spell it out for him.) Another "friend" was laughing, so Connor joined in only to be told that he was laughing at Connor, not with him. Yet another "friend" makes a big production out of how horrible it would be to sit near Connor at lunch. Classmates whom he rarely notices, however, are the kids who he should call "friends." A girl draws pictures for him, another asks him for help on schoolwork she does not understand. Several of the athletic kids, when in PE, slowed down so that instead of winning, they could run with and finish next to Connor who runs slowly and awkwardly. For nine and ten year-olds, I was extremely impressed.

My point is, Connor does not know what a true friend looks like. He can tell me how a friend should act and how to be a good friend, but the execution is more difficult. He tries to talk to his peers, but he often does not say the right thing or in the right way or at the right time. Unfortunately, this makes it easier for him to be bullied.

My solution: I say put the power back in the hands of your own children. Don't let anyone tell them how they should feel. We role play at home. We look at social stories. We teach all of our kids how to handle those harsh comments and actions. We tell them that the words do hurt, but they don't break you unless you let them. If they can get through it, they will be stronger, and probably more successful than those who hurt them. What is more difficult, is making them understand how to be patient until their time comes, and that their time will come.